Normally don’t listen to Finebaum but had a long drive home so I flipped it on to listen.
He was talking with Bill Bender of the Sporting News about bowls/sponsorship. Finebaum stated that many of the bowl sponsors (even the major bowls) are getting more and more uneasy with their investment in these games. Many are feeling they aren’t getting “the bang for the buck” they should be from these games. And they point to lower attendance at many of these games as “apathy” for the game.
The major concern isn’t programs like Alabama, Clemson, and the blue bloods. They will always draw. But outside of those programs, interest and attendance has begun to dwindle. A most of the corporate people see it as a trend not likely to end soon. The aging baby boomers fans are being replaced by younger customers that (as Finebaum put it) “are more interested in quality WIFI than they are quality football or a quality program”. And both Finebaum and Bender alluded that some of the sponsors are only still aligned with the some of the bowls via some “arm twisting” from the networks.
He also stated that decrease in attendance across the board at regular season games (even among students) has AD’s very concerned. The goose that laid the golden in conference networks aligned major programming via ESPN and others may turnout to be a detriment in the long run.
It was a rather interesting discussion.